Being susceptible to migraines, I sometimes wonder why I’ve chosen to live in what some people call the migraine capital of the world.  Most of the time the benefits of this city make the answer to that pretty easy.  Then you get days like happened this weekend, where the temperature in Calgary went from -21 to +10 in the span of a couple of days.  Fortunately, I managed at least to get the Voice Magazine’s articles up before the weekend, because, if you haven’t looked at it already, it’s full of great stuff.

Our feature, of course, is an interview with a fellow student, this time one who recently graduated and is able to look back on her full program and let us know about somet of the highs and lows of it.

However, we’re also featuring this week a response to one of our own articles, as Jessica Young has a very different take on what Marie Well described as the ultimate female valentine.  And it touches enough points that I’ve made it one of our features in this issue.

Finally, rounding out the top three, we have Barb Lehtiniemi’s look at when she went for a drive and found herself out and about with the Freedom Convoy just as they were moving in toward Ottawa.  From inside, she got a very different feeling than what many outside the convoy have been reporting.

For me, the convoy has become a bit of an obsession.  And, like many, I’m pretty solidly against it.  The right to protest is, of course, vital to a healthy society, but so is the right of the general citizenry to live and sleep peacefully in their homes.  And while some incovenience is often associated with protests (though intelligent and creative protests don’t need to cause inconvenience to get noticed and get their message out), when that inconvenience is driven into the homes of people who are not involved with the situation, at 100 decibels or more, than it has gone from being a protest to being a nuisance.

Or perhaps even terrorism.  The Borscht title, if you’re unaware, is an old in-joke that I made once when noting the results of a survey we did, and just happened to end up being on an editorial about terrorism, and the title stuck for future articles on the topic.  If we go back to those old editorials, I defined a three-fold test to see if something should be considered terrorism: Does the action primarily harm the public and civilians? Is it organized? Is it intended to change our society?

That citizens in Ottawa had to get a court injunction to stop the convoy horns from disturbing their normal activities and sleep seems to fulfill the first test.  That the convoy is loosely organized, there can be no doubt of, with groups like Canada Unity and Tamara Lich claiming to be organizers and speaking for the group.  But is it intended to change our society?  That they are demanding the government change the laws made to protect the health of Canadians (whether you agree if the laws will work for that purpose or not) certainly seems to lean that way.

But is it legally terrorism?  After all these truckers are doing what they’re doing for lofty goals. “For freedom,” as they like to claim.  But then again, all terrorists claim lofty goals.  Fortunately for the truckers, what changes something from protest to terrorism legally is if there is an intent to harm a segment of the public in the act.  Pieces like Barb’s article might help to show that that wasn’t the intent.  Certainly not at first.

Enjoy the read!